Harry,

Those look like they are going to be really good. A little consolation for the lack of Mangos caused by the winter weather.

Tony

Yummmmmm.....I got some lychee from chinatown too. Hope they will have some nicer lychee later. I would like to eat the sweetheart again. Do you have any kaimana lychee this year? I would love to try that too.:)

I really need to move to Florida:) I counted about 187 small lychees on my potted Sweetheart last month and today, I see only about 15 left holding on the tree and gaining size. I really need to plant my tree into the ground:( Great pics Harry, let us know how they taste when they are ready.
Simon

Wow Harry...those look awesome! Can't wait to see them when they're ripe... Thanks for posting!

Your pics always makes me wanna move down to Florida! And I sure would love to try a lychee right off your trees. It must taste a thousand times better than the store-bought ones.
Bo

Even green they are beautiful, thanks for posting (teasing).

-Ethan

Nice Harry. They are a bit further along than I was expecting. Maybe the 13th will be ok. I can make it any weekend this month except for the last one.

Ok, here's the lastest pics of the lychee progress....we're getting closer.....in fact Sheehan (Murahilin) stopped by today and we tasted an early Large Red. It was still tart but not bad...still needed to add some flesh.

Early Large red (view from north)

Early large Red, view from South side

Early Large red close up

Mauritius

Mauritius close up

Garnet

Garnet close up

Farwell Ranch

Kaimana

Sweetheart

Sweetheart close up

That's it for now. Sheehan promised to post the pic he took of the lychee he ate today.

Harry

Harry - Fantastic pics (as usual). Sheehan sure is lucky to live very close to you! I am very envious...lol
Bo

Will the lychee fruits survive 3 days shipping in this hot weather? LOl. I had to do 1-2 day fedex for the sweetheart I ordered from lycheesonline the other year. I think I should just stick with the Asian supermarkets. I got 4 lbs of lychee today and it was $3.99/lb. I think I saw sweetheart lychee here in Chinatown last year but they were smaller than the one from lycheesonline.

Wow Harry they have really picked up in the last week. Do you think the original plan of next weekend might be ok to head down or do you think the following weekend may still be better? It would be great if I could try the kaimana. I figured they would not be ready when I was down. Has Gerry already pushed his trip back until next month?

i will wait till friday to decide whether to postpone the trip

Sounds good Gerry, I figured you would not want to miss the mauritius.

Harry, did your sweetheart not hold many fruit? Mine did not hold a single one. I am starting to wonder if the sweetheart may not be as great as I had read before buying it. This will be my second year in a row only getting a handful (if the squirrels stay away and they don't split) of emperors from all of my trees. Starting to get a little frustrated with the lychees. Lucky that I know a guy down south that has a "couple".

No, not many fruit at all. I was disappointed in Sweetheart last year as well. My neighbors have a larger tree with more fruit and larger fruit on it...but certainly not a great producer there either. I think the tree must have to get larger (under our conditions) before they produce better. I am hoping anyway.

Harry

Wow!! Drool, drool, drool...thanks for the awesome pictures Harry! When's the Lychee party?

Early Large Red and Mauritius are just about a day or two short of perfection. Kaimana is coloring up very quickly. Walked out this morning to the horror of a flock off gigantic crows feasting on my lychees. I've turned the kids and their Airsoft Guns into to the Lychee Defense Squad. This is the first time that I have ever seen these birds in my yard. We've had smaller black birds, but these things were Ravens or Crows...not sure which. Definitely not welcome.

Harry

So Sorry to hear that Harry......I hate those little Suckers, or should I say Giant Suckers eating all of our
Lychees.....'er, I mean your Lychess, :). Toss them a few Alka-Seltzer Tablets dipped in something sweet or wrapped in a piece of Bread or Food. I promise you they will not be back anytime soon, if at all.

Jacob

lychee defense squad! LOOOOOOOLLLL!! :-))

harry, great pics, great fruit and great healthy trees!

i recently bought kaimana and groff. let's see how they develop in my dry (by day) and hot climate. in my area there some wai chee and brewster lychee fruiting. i hope the cultivars i got do even better.

felipe

My Sweetheart Lychee now has only a single fruit on it from over a 15 of them when it started to set fruit. As time went on it kept dropping fruit for no apparent reason.

This tree was highly recommended by PIN as their finest Lychee but I'm extremely disappointed with this purchase. The picture of your Sweetheart Lychee confirms my suspicion, and solidifies what a friend of mine told me that its not a very productive tree contrary to PIN Lychee viewer information.

Lychees that I got at Harry's house yesterday morning. Mostly 'Early Large Red' with a few 'Hak Ip'.

Looks good. How do the Early large red taste? Were the Kaimana ready? Is the Mauritius done?
See you tomorrow. I'll be in a red Jeep wrangler. It's gonna be a LONG day but it will be worth it.

Great updates Harry. I haven't been on the forum lately becuase my wife just gave birth to our first child and we are busy still moving into our new house. My Sweetheart has now dropped all of its fruits but i hear that Phase's Sweetheart is still doing good and will probably have more fruits than last year. I guess my tree will save some energy and will have a nice veg flush after I finally plant it into the ground.

Harry, have you tasted the Sweetheart's yet? If so, what did you think? Lets see some pics of the insides of the Lychees :)
Simon

Simon, Congrats on your new Baby and your new house. Talk about two great things to happen at the same time!

Jsvand, Have you make it over to Harry's yet...we'd love to see pictures if you have.

Yep, Made it last saturday. Harry definitely has tons of stuff. I got loads of lychees. His big mauritius broke in half during a storm the day before I got there . It was loaded with ripe lychees so I got plenty while I was down. I also saw Harry's massive Jackfruit trees. The blooms definitely don't smell great. I didn't have any luck finding any good mangoes while I was down. I think if I would have waited a few weeks I would have had more luck. I picked up a few Mangosteen from the fortune cookie. I think they may have been a bit past their prime but I have tried them a few times now, and I am thinking mangosteen may not be as good as I had hoped. I probably wouldn't have spent hundreds of dollars on mangosteen trees if I had tasted them first. Harry, what was the name of the guy that you mentioned shipped mangoes? I might like to order a few when they are ready.

I grafted a few jackfruit and wax jambus while I was down, and Harry grafted a mango for me since any mango graft done by me is doomed to failure. So far all of the grafts aside from one jackfruit look perfect. The one Jackfruit looks a little iffy. I think water got trapped under the grafting tape during a rainstorm on that one. I am somewhat confident that the others will make it.

For plants I grabbed a Muntingia, an atemoya (some crazy name that I can't remember without going outside to read the label), a kaimana airlayer from Harry, and Maha chinook mango from Harry, and a grafted Malay apple from excalibur that I managed to kill within a week due to being stupid. I may replace that in a few weeks if Pine Islands Malays are grafted. I'll probably break down and get a gefner atemoya as well. I should have just bought both when I was down, but for some stupid reason I thought I would be satisfied with just the one.

It was a nice trip and the ride did not seem nearly as bad as I was expecting. Sheehan and Harry were both great. I made it home from Harry's in a little over 4 hours. I may be heading down to Miami to drop off a few snakes next month (my other hobby is breeding ball python morphs) so I might have a chance to pick up some mangoes then.

Thats awesome jsvand5, I use to raise retics, burms, boas, balls, and bloods. Didnt do much breeding, more of a collector. I have since reduced my collection to a sinle ball for the kids!

Ref the mangosteen, just remember that almost all commercial fruit is picked before their prime, I am sure if you fruit a mangosteen urself it will be quite tasty.